It's not a better representation, it distorts the shape of countries, the Mercator preserved shapes. Europe and the pacific Islands are squished and less legible to somebody trying to read it.
Why would I want to use a map that's harder to read?
The Mercator projection is good at preserving shape, there are other protection that are way better at preserving size, the new proposals is a really good compromise that is better for most purpose.
Maps are meant to be read, and this map is less legible since it squished everything not at the equator. To preserve the legibility of a map, stretching is preferred over squishing. Replacing a stretching map with a squishing map is a downgrade, not a compromise. Find a good stretching map that also makes Africa bigger, that would be a compromise.
It is not less legible. Or you could argue Mercator makes equatorial countries less legible. There's no qualitative difference between "stretching" or "squshing", as we're not aiming for a particular scale, but extent.
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u/ThisI5N0tAThr0waway 22h ago
No, it's not important. But it should be fine nevertheless because it's a move to a better representation of Earth as it is.